Winner: 2nd Place, Wattpad's SciFi Holiday Challenge
My first foray into science fiction! I’d heard the genre was an eyeball magnet, so I waded into the Wattpad quagmire and entered a competition.
The prompt:
With a click of a key, the report is sent on its way, the mission that dominated everything during the last five years accomplished, all slates cleared. Time for a holiday! Nothing as relaxing as a stroll down to the pub, that first drink, and the knowledge four weeks without hard duty, demanding tasks, and impossible schedules lie ahead. But sometimes, a holiday doesn't meet our expectations. And this time, destiny plays a wicked hand...
Dun. Dun. Dun…
Aren’t prompts fun? This one was delicious. I jumped right in…
With the flick of a chin, the thesis is submitted, the task that had dominated Sarah Lysander’s life for the past five years finally complete. All slates cleared, in her mind. She’d officially achieved her doctorate in the niche Humanitarian subject of Reading.
But a sparkly new title isn’t all she’s gained. For very soon thereafter, Sarah is contacted by the Sky Tech government with a surprising invitation to Virtual Totality.
The news shocks everyone. Out of millions of Sky State citizens, why pick an irrelevant academic for the coveted honor of Totality? What could the Sky Tech government possibly be thinking?
Dr. Sarah Lysander is about to find out.
The story won second place! I’m grateful for it because it introduced me to a genre I now read enthusiastically.
Part One
Wide arches ran the length of the quadrant. Sarah crossed underneath their threshold and immediately ported to the center of an empty, sunlit room. The ceiling was higher than the arches had appeared, primarily skylight, and the sun fell through in commodious slats that bathed the bamboo flooring with a honey-richness Sarah could almost taste.
“Hello?” she said, her voice echoing through the emptiness.
She brought a finger to her ear, flicked her chin upwards and blinked twice, switching on.
The transmission replayed:
Sending to: Dr. Sarah Lysander,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to experience Virtual Totality. Please Air Port to the appended address on July 1st. We look forward to your experience.
Sending from: Sky Tech
Sarah removed her finger, flicked her chin downwards and blinked twice, switching off.
That had been it. Out of the millions of Sky State Citizens, she’d officially been summoned as the next participant for Virtual Totality.
The choice had baffled everyone, especially herself. Why pick an irrelevant academic for the coveted honor of Totality? Previous nominations had been biometricians, high-cell designers, inner visioneers – all star representatives of highly visible fields. But what was she? A professor of Reading? What had she done other than recently publish a doctoral thesis on written expression in the Pre-Sky era that no one outside of her specialty would ever listen to?
It didn’t make any sense that she was here, yet here she was. Air-lagged. And not entirely sure she was in the right place.
“Hello, Sarah,” a voice came through her Switch, “My name is Phenomenon. I’ll be guiding you through your Totality Experience. I understand you’ve Air Ported all the way from Jarway Centrality. On behalf of Sky Tech, thank you for making the trip. Let’s waste no time. Please approach the Cleansing Pool.”
Sarah’s first impression of emptiness had been wrong. There was a small pool in the center of the room. It had an emerald tint that became black when her shadow crossed it.
“We ask participants to submerge themselves in the Cleansing Pool for ten seconds. In this way, you will allow the Totality Suit to enhance your experience most fully.”
Sarah undressed and entered the pool with a cautious step. The blackish fluid felt lighter than it looked, as if she were submerging her foot into a current of warm wind. She continued down the steps and realized she was exhaling involuntarily, the oxygen inside her being replaced by the warm windiness of the pool. When the surface line reached her neck, she felt so full of air that she exhaled before she went under. The count to ten was serene, almost vague. And when she rose, she didn’t tilt her head upwards like she would have done upon exiting water, but downwards, chin to chest, as if something in her forehead was suctioned to the ground.
“I’m not sure if I’d do that again,” she said, grabbing a provided towel.
“Thankfully, you won’t need to,” came Phenomenon’s voice.
Sarah paused in her drying – Phenomenon’s voice was richer, laced now with the textural intimacy of a whisper.
“What have you done?” Sarah asked, instinctively raising a finger to her ear.
“Very astute, Sarah. I have moved into your thalamus. Previously, via Switch Technology, transmissions were first sent to your inner ear and then passed along brain-ex pathways to the brain. Now, via Totality Technology, transmissions are impulsed into the brain directly. You are hearing me as accurately and intuitively as you hear your own thoughts. We are now ready for the Totality Suit.”
Sarah was intrigued. Having been born in the Vestiges, away from Sky Tech’s chin flitting and blink adeptivity, she’d grown up at a technological disadvantage. Switching on and off had never been natural for her. This wasn’t the case for the majority of Centrality citizens, however. They lived switched on. The nature of Sky Tech was their nature. Sarah’s difference in this regard tended to translate into incompetency. So who knew? Maybe this new Totality Tech was exactly what she needed to finally gain some equal footing.
She unrolled the Totality Suit. It had the waxen elasticity of a flower petal, and folded itself upon her with a similar intuitive grace. As it curled around her skull, Sarah felt a vague weight eclipse her brain.
“Please proceed through the inner portigo,” came Phenomenon’s newly-textured voice.
Part Two
Sarah crossed the threshold and immediately ported to the center of the next room. It was hexagonal and massive, the ceiling nothing more than far-away sunlight. Everything was white and seemed to be made out of the same waxen-petal material as her suit. Five portigos surrounded her, each taking up a segment in the hexagon.
The portigo directly opposite was a dimly-lit room. Sarah squinted and recognized books.
“Uff,” she said.
As a professor of Reading, Sarah spent a lot of time with books. Indeed, she was one of the few literate Sky Citizens left. Such a distinction would have made her famous fifty years ago, but ever since Sky State’s prioritization of inner-cortex visioneering, attitudes toward non-Switch communication had become condescending, if not hostile and suspicious. Sarah was once jeered at a conference for ‘anti-Sky mongering’. But Sarah was ambivalent. Early Pre-Sky expression was her passion; she would have been alone in her passion even if it was widely embraced – such was passion. Here, though, she turned away. Books were work. And this was a vacation.
The rest of the portigos were darkened except for the one on her immediate left. It was a smear of pastels and emitted a soft whispering. Like leaves in the wind. No. Like a curtain in a breeze. No. Thrush. Hush. Splash. Hum. Splash. Yes. Splash! That’s what the sound was: waves!
The thought solidified and Sarah was immediately ported to its threshold. She found herself standing on the edge of a cliff.
“Hack!”
She whipped around but the Totality room had been replaced by a cave. She tasted salt.
“Where am I?”
Phenomenon’s voice cut through the background crashing:
“We are in a lonely place, Sarah. However, it is a place you materialized with positive emotion.”
“I’ve never been here.”
“Correct. This is an abstract memory. You have never been to this place. However, you do know this place.”
Sarah tip-toed back to the cave’s edge and looked down. The waves crashed below. The sky was leaden. She tried to place it. A sea-side cave. Small. With white walls. Like the hexagonal room. But softly white. Powdery…
Like snow? Like that?
An impulse guided her to the wall. She pressed a hand into it.
Yes, my dove. Exactly like snow.
She remembered her hand as smaller, touching a similar whiteness to this, in a book. Yes. She remembered her hand pressed upon a glossy photo of something very similar to this…
A greasy snow.
Greasy?
The Totality Suit’s vague weight began to hum around her skull.
A greasy sort of snow.
The humming condensed into heavy points, like marbles.
Chalk.
The marbles began to roll around the outer edges of her mind.
Chalk? Papa?
Papa. Her father. Yes. It was her father that had said it.
The marbles collected at the front of her head.
Her father. With a book. Her small hand. Reaching out to the book. A big book. The Big Book…
“The Big Book of Britain,” Sarah whispered, and then: “The White Cliffs of Dover! Cut like a cake! They’re cut like a cake! That’s here! That’s where we are! The White Cliffs of Dover!”
The chalk deepened in texture, becoming velvety with realness. Detail tightened into focus as the memory flushed through her.
The leaden marbles split into separate tracks and began to roll around the pathways of her brain.
“The images in this cave are from The Big Book of Britain!” she said, “This cave comes from them!”
Her fingers indented upon the powdery softness and suddenly her father’s face was all she saw.
They used to command the sea, my dove. The shorelines used to stop the sea.
“My father had shown me pictures of this place,” she said, “Turning the pages with his hands. His hands and my hands…”
She pressed her hand upon the chalk more firmly.
Our hands, papa! Rah! Rah!
The page floated up through the haze. She remembered the D. The O. The V. The E –
“Hack!”
Sarah’s hand snapped to her ear: an acute pain had erupted just inside. She dropped to her knees, holding herself. The pain fanned out, oozing into the tracks of those marble weights. She flailed her hands and dug her fingers into the chalk. Searing tracks. Burning. Boring. She bore her fingers into the wall—
And then off.
The pain was gone.
She was left staring at her hands against the cave wall.
Phenomenon cut in:
“Sarah, are you alright?”
All she could do was blink.
“Sarah? Are you OK? We have observed the episode. Please respond with a full sentence.”
The feeling of uncurling from a deep stretch was happening just behind her eyes.
“Sarah, please respond. Are you alright?”
Sarah heard the words vaguely.
“I don’t…” she heard herself say.
She leaned into the wall, her fingers still embedded in the chalk. She tried to focus on them individually.
“I don’t feel well…”
“Understandable.”
The cave blipped away. Sarah was now in a small room, her nails digging into a lily-patterned wall.
“Sarah, please rise and take the gullet on the table.”
She fumbled into a standing position and groped for the syringe. Her hands swiped when they should have grabbed. She felt like she was wielding two tennis rackets.
“I can’t…”
“Understandable. Please wait.”
The room changed to an open cabana. She was again by the sea. The air quickly filled with moisture. Humidity. Thick.
“Please inhale, Sarah.”
She took a deep breath. Her fumbling numbness changed to fatigue.
“Continue inhaling.”
Her fatigue became forgetfulness.
“Deep breaths.”
“Papa…”
“There is a bed just behind you.”
“Papa…”
Part Three
She awoke in sunlight. Sounds of birds and surf drifted through the gauzy curtains. For a moment, Sarah didn’t know where she was. Then she remembered Totality and her disorientation stopped bothering her.
“Good morning, Sarah,” came the voice.
“Good morning, Phenomenon.”
“A Guata Mandate breakfast is on the table.”
“Ah.”
Sarah rose to the magnificent spread. Her head didn’t hurt. In fact, she felt great. She played her hands through the sunlight, trying to identify ways it appeared unreal, but she couldn’t. Observing the relationship between herself and her surroundings was as natural and logical a process as observing the progress of a clock.
“Sarah, on behalf of Totality Technologies, I apologize for your previous episode. We use predictive biometric analysis to set boundaries for conscious exploration. Unfortunately, our analysis isn’t always correct. In the rare case of a boundary breach, the neuragraphy reads a no-ceiling and spikes. This spike is what you experienced as pain.”
“Oh.”
“To be quite frank, Sarah, we were taken aback by the strength of your imagistic capability. Such levels of conscious conjuring are rare. Fortunately, no physical damage has occurred. The pain you experienced was purely psychological. All is well.”
“OK.”
“Also, we have re-examined your initial analysis and with this newly acquired information we have readjusted our levels accordingly. The spike won’t happen again. We sincerely apologize.”
“Thank you,” she said, a bit below the gist of the explanation, “That was a very…logical apology. I appreciate it and I accept it. Thank you.”
She honestly wasn’t angry. Mistakes happen, especially with great projects similar to what was obviously happening here. Technology is evolution, after all. Evolution requires change. And not all change happens smoothly. Something about that seemed OK.
“Is there anything you need, Sarah?”
“Well, yes. I’d like to know how long I’ve been here. How long have I been sleeping?”
“For your own sake, Sarah, we ask that you allow yourself this experience as purely as possible by remaining ignorant of time. Totality transcends time. Your knowledge of that information would work against what Totality is attempting to create.”
“Ah.”
Yes, it was true. Technology is evolution and evolution requires patience. Sarah had learned this long ago.
Part Four
Sarah was again in the white, hexagonal room. The cave remained visible through the portigo on her left. The portigo directly opposite was still filled with books, although there was now an armchair just beyond the threshold. Comfy. But still, she turned away.
One of the previously darkened portigos had brightened into a kitchen. Sarah moved toward it warily.
It was Vestigial, obviously. A tiled floor. A wooden table. Pre-Sky appliances became discernible as she neared it. The vague weight in her head began to hum.
She paused.
“It’s alright,” came Phenomenon, “Your levels have been altered. We encourage you to connect and synthesize freely.”
Sarah continued her slow walk towards the threshold and realized everything beyond it was getting bigger. By the time she’d reached the edge, she was a good two feet shorter than she was used to. She crossed and immediately recognized the clean taste of Vestigial air.
“I’m very young,” she whispered, “I feel it.”
She raised her hand. Her skin was soft and freckled. A black smear extended along the length of her forearm. She moved to sniff it but stopped.
“Don’t be afraid, Sarah. No more pain will occur. The more you give to the experience, the more the experience will give to you.”
Sarah sniffed the smear: blackberry gladness. Joy. Checkered dish towels appeared. True Coffee mugs with their stars and stripes. Spoon chimes tinkled from the door. The eclectic decor of her childhood kitchen was coming alive. She raised the smear to her mouth and licked – there it was! The same blackberry jam! She licked the smear clean. Vitality spirited through her body. Then she heard something else, a bounding, boundless gladness…
“Okra,” she whispered, turning to the inner door, “Okra!”
And the great German Shepard bounded through the kitchen. She ran with him through the kitchen door, out into that unfolding green, past the oak, down the lane, along the fence, her legs nimble and untiring as she crested the hill. The meadow fell out beyond, its golden-haze filling her like a song. She was hearing it and seeing it and feeling it. And beyond that the lake. And beyond that the forest. The caves. She ran down the hill and re-entered the forgotten wilderness of her childhood for the first time in years.
The sun never set. The sky remained a fine-china blue. She slept and ate as it pleased her. An unknowable amount of time passed before she returned to the top of the hill and collapsed in snow-angel form.
*
Sarah!
The call cut through her slumber like a fog horn. It came again, and then stronger. Sarah fluttered awake.
“Phenomenon?”
The call came again.
“Phenomenon? What was that?”
It came again.
Sarah turned onto her stomach, looking back towards the house: the call was coming from somewhere within Totality.
“Phenomenon? Was that you? Are you there?”
The call came again. Something about it chilled her. The hum of the Totality Suit returned at the fringes of her mind.
“Phenomenon?”
She stood. The call was coming closer, moving down the lane, along the fence.
“Phenomenon. Please. Where are you? Is that you?”
The call was a voice. The voice was coming up the hill.
The Suit’s humming condensed into the leaden marbles.
“I don’t want this,” she said, shaking her head, turning in different directions, “Phenomenon. Where are you? I don’t think I want this. I want to leave.”
The call came again.
She took several steps toward the meadow. An impulse was telling her to run.
“I want to leave, Phenomenon. I don’t want to be here. Are you listening to me? I don’t want to see him!”
The voice was her father’s. But her father was dead. And dead faces cannot be seen outside of memory. Dead faces should not be seen outside of memory. Could not. Should not. She didn’t want to see him in this infidelity maze. This shouldn’t be happening.
The leaden marbles rolled to the center of her brain. They began to hum, to buzz, to whir.
“This isn’t a game,” she whispered.
The voice came from the other side of the crest.
“Phenomenon!” she screamed, her voice breaking, “I want to leave!”
She ran down the hill in the opposite direction. Her ankle caught and she tripped; the sudden pain bleared into whiteness. A real pain now. Bone pain. The meadow wavered. Whiteness flickered in and out. The voice was at the top of the hill. She wouldn’t look. Shouldn’t look. She dragged herself into the meadow – pain, pain, pain.
“Phenomenon!”
The voice was coming down the hill, seconds from her, its familiar vibrato igniting sparks within the very sacrum of her soul.
She had no alternative. She took a deep breath, grabbed her foot, and twisted it further into the position of pain.
There was a shock of white before she fell back, back, back as a black enveloped all.
Part Five
“Phenomenon, what the fuck was that? Why didn’t you respond when I called you? That was totally inappropriate.”
Sarah was propped up on the most comfortable hospital bed conceivable. Her foot was wrapped in plex-i-gel. She felt no pain whatsoever. In fact, aside from her anger, she felt spectacular. Her mind was a kite.
“Do you understand how traumatic that could have been?” she continued, “I hope you had a mentalist waiting behind one of those portigo things. Bad form, Phenomenon. Way way bad.”
“My sincerest apologies, Sarah,” Phenomenon pipped in, “You were at the point of finally engaging with the experience. You were allowing yourself Totality. I was hesitant to break that experience.”
“Bull shit. I was scared out of my mind.”
Sarah felt victimized and offended and she was going to let Phenomenon know it.
“Forgive me, Sarah. I didn’t know you were going to react negatively to your father’s appearance.”
“Don’t give me that ignorant shit. You’re inside my mind, remember? What were you doing? Switching with your friend Miracle? Or Hallelujah? Were you too busy talking to them to pay attention to me?”
“I was observing the situation.”
“Then you were ignoring me.”
“As stated, I was hesitant to—”
“I want a True Beer. Right here. On this pillow. Do it.”
“Of course, Sarah.”
The True Beer materialized.
“And I want whatever the owner of the finest restaurant in Jarway ordered when they ate at the finest restaurant in Yulesing. And vice versa. Both dishes. Right here.”
“Of course.”
The plates appeared on a pushcart at her side.
“How long have I been in Totality?”
“We encourage participants—”
“How long have I been in Totality?”
“Thirteen days.”
“What?”
Sarah fell back on her pillows. Her highest guess would have been four. She paused to consider this surprise. She also paused to observe the multi-colored fireflies that had recently entered the room.
“You’ve been administered a strong dose of Codream, Sarah. You shouldn’t feel pain. We don’t want you to feel any pain.”
Sarah returned her attention to the situation.
“Because pain uses the whole brain, correct?” she said, “That’s why you don’t want me to feel it. Because when I feel intense amounts of pain, I effectively build a wall between us. Isn’t that right? I cut you out. My pain is your worst enemy. My pain beats this whole system, this whole experience. Isn’t that right?”
Phenomenon didn’t respond.
“Hello?”
The silence brought Sarah to the realization that she was very, very angry. This wasn’t fair. She’d been subjected to pain, fear, more pain, and now her foot would be in a magneticast for at least two weeks. This was the worst vacation she’d ever had.
“You know…” she began.
But her anger checked itself. It wasn’t her way to let anger decide her words. She took a few seconds to forcefully rearrange the mountain of pillows surrounding her. One of her movements caused her foot to slip and swing off the bed. A dull pain shot up her spine.
“You know!” she snapped, “You all are some arrogant fuckers!”
She threw the offending pillow overboard, and then another, and another, anger trumping restraint with every violent throw.
“You think you’re so smart and special but really you’re all the same. Sky Tech. Totality Tech. Blah blah. It’s all the same. It’s the evolution of intellect. Not wisdom. You’re like a toddler king, Phenomenon. You and your group. Just this measly, toddler, tyrant group, surrounded by endless power and information and yet still making choices that’d make a wise man cry. If you asked me, I’d say the only truly human part of this fiasco was the fact that it was a complete fuck all.”
She settled back onto the few remaining pillows and took a deep gulp of True Beer.
The white, hexagonal room stared back. The silence was heavy. She was getting hot. She took another gulp. The silence seemed to grow. She finished her beer nervously. Not thirstily. Nervously.
“Hello?” she said.
Her voice had about as much significance as a gnat.
“Hello!” she bellowed.
Sarah noted a lack of echo. This was some sort of dead space. Her yells probably didn’t carry past these walls.
“Your thoughts have been registered, Sarah,” came Phenomenon’s voice.
“Good.”
“Your thoughts are always registered, Sarah.”
“Good.”
“As you noted, we are inside your mind, Sarah.”
Phenomenon’s tone gave Sarah pause. She was attempting to articulate exactly why it was beginning to scare her when the lamp in the library portigo clicked on.
“Why is there a fucking library here?” she blurted, “Why has that been here this entire time?”
“We thought you would enjoy it, Sarah. You are a professor of Reading.”
“Exactly. It’s my job. This is supposed to be a vacation.”
“You study the Pre-Sky Era, Sarah. We thought you would like to read.”
“Yes, but why didn’t you send me into an excavation then? Or a time trance? There are far more immersive experiences in terms of Humanistic exploration than a fucking book. I can read by myself, for God’s sake. I do it everyday. I don’t need Totality to read. It makes absolutely no sense. Why is that there?”
Phenomenon was silent. Sarah couldn’t stand it.
“Hello!” she bellowed again.
The lack of echo was beginning to scare her.
“Yes, Sarah?”
Sarah didn’t know what to say. She realized too late that her feelings of helplessness were translating into tears.
“I—I want to leave,” she said, attempting to calm herself, “That’s what I want to say. I want to leave. I’m not comfortable here anymore. I’m not cut out for this. I’m ready to leave.”
The silence was a suffocating mask.
“I’ve appreciated the experience very much,” she continued, “I thank all of you very much. But I think maybe you’ve selected the wrong girl. This isn’t for me. I think I should leave. I’m ready to leave.”
The silence was a scream.
“I said ‘I’m ready to leave’,” Sarah said, feeling the first wave of panic, “I’d like to leave Totality. I want to take off this suit. No worries about the ankle. It’s fine…”
Sarah looked behind her: the lobby portigo was gone. She was now surrounded by nothing but Totality portigos and endless, faceless silence.
“Hello!? Phenomenon?! Do you hear me?!”
A high-pitch zip cut into the silence and a new voice came through:
“Good evening, Dr. Lysander. It seems you’ve brought us to an early end. Such a downer,” the voice was slippery, “It’s always such a downer to have our hopes dashed. Isn’t that the proper term, doctor? A downer? I’m trying to say ‘I’m saddened by the course of these events’. So can I say downer here? And ‘to have one’s hopes dashed’? Is that also correct?”
There was a pause. Sarah waited. The pause continued. Sarah found it inconceivable she was being asked this question at this moment.
“Yes,” she finally faltered.
“I thought so.”
Again, there was a long pause.
“Dr. Lysander,” the voice continued, “I have to say I had higher hopes for this Totality. I really did. I did not expect my high hopes to be dashed so extremely. You must understand how hard I work to bring specialized minds into Totality Chambers. Creating a faithful map of human neuronal activity isn’t easy. It’s actually quite hard. It requires multiple specialized contributions. And to be perfectly honest, I’m still not sure yours is entirely necessary but I decided it’s better to be safe than sorry. Right? Better to be safe than sorry?”
Again, the pause. Sarah was too flabbergasted to respond.
“Well. Anyway. You’re dashing my hopes because you’re being such a non-compliant downer. I hope you understand what I’m saying. I also hope you understand you’ll be staying here.”
“What?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you mean I’m staying here?”
“I mean you aren’t leaving.”
“I know. But…but what do you mean I’m not leaving? I am leaving. You’re opening that lobby portigo and I’m walking out.”
“Not really, doctor. No.”
Pause.
“What?!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, doctor. It’s really not so complicated. You were brought here for your expertise. We haven’t tracked that expertise. We can’t let you go until we do. There you go. Easy peasy.”
“Are you telling me I’m being detained?”
Pause.
“Yes.”
Pause.
“What!?”
“Doctor, really. That’s enough. You shouldn’t be surprised. There’s no free lunch. You know that one, too, right? No free lunch? Meaning you can’t get something for free and not expect consequences.”
“No. It means you shouldn’t expect something without giving something in return.”
“Exactly.”
“No. It doesn’t mean you invite someone to something without telling them they’re expected to give something in return, and then detain them when they inevitably don’t give you what you never told them they were supposed to give in the first place.”
Pause.
“My word, doctor.”
Pause.
“Your anger is really making this conversation difficult.”
Sarah was up. She swung out of bed and beelined to the wall.
“Let me out!” she screamed.
“But we’re not done with you, doctor. We need to capture neural patterns only you possess. We need you to do things and you haven’t done them so you need to stay. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
“I’m not doing what you say.”
“That’s not the way to make me let you go.”
“I don’t give a hack what you want. This is an egregious infringement on my rights as a Sky Citizen. Does Sky State even know this is happening?”
Pause.
“Yes.”
Pause.
“Duh.”
The portigo suddenly materialized. Sarah raced through only to find herself in a small, gray room.
“This might be an over-embellishment but I feel the imagery fits the bill. Right? Fits the bill? When something is appropriate? As in, this jail cell appropriately rewards your behavior as a non-compliant participant?”
The long silence repeated. Sarah’s shock prevented her from fully digesting the situation.
“Totality Tech needs you, Dr. Lysander. You will do what it requires, as those before you have done, and as those after you will continue to do. There’s nothing else. Tah-tah.”
The high-pitched snip repeated and Sarah was left in silence. She ran against the wall that should have led into the street but was rebuked with solid hardness. Then a cot appeared, a sink, and then slowly, like the rise of a den of cobras, a dozen steel bars rose from the floor and connected to the ceiling.
“But I haven’t done anything,” she whispered, “You can’t do this!”
“This is Totality, Sarah,” came Phenomenon’s voice, “There’s nothing we can’t do.”
“But you shouldn’t do this! This isn’t right!”
Silence.
“Phenomenon!”
Silence
“Please! This is wrong! You know this is wrong!”
Sarah screamed, screamed, screamed, but not even her echo responded.